ORLANDO--More than four years after the initial 800 MHz rebanding schedule was unveiled to public-safety agencies, an international agreement that would allow public-safety agencies along the U.S.-Mexico border likely is at least four months away, an official for the 800 MHz Transition Administrator (TA) said yesterday.

During a session about rebanding during the Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials (APCO) Winter Summit, TA representative Joe Boyer said a U.S.-Mexico agreement is not imminent, although addressing the matter is “perhaps the top priority” of the FCC’s public safety and homeland security bureau.

“If things go well, then we could see something out of the commission perhaps late second quarter or early third quarter, but there’s a lot that has to fall in place for that [to happen],” Boyer said.

More than 83% of the NPSPAC licensees in non-border regions have signed a final rebanding agreement with Sprint Nextel to execute spectrum reconfiguration in the 800 MHz band. A U.S.-Canada agreement means rebanding work along the Canadian border is expected to begin in earnest this spring and summer, but NPSPAC licensees along the U.S.-Mexico border need a deal between the two countries to commence 800 MHz rebanding work.

In the meantime, the estimated 200 licensees that will be affected by a U.S.-Mexico agreement should ensure that their FCC licenses are up to date, that the TA has the proper contact information and that any planning work not requiring knowledge of the eventual frequency plan is pursued, Boyer said.

800 MHz Rebanding - Mr. Root reported the reprogramming of RCS users continues;approaching 40% of the user fleet, and we that reprogramming of large law enforcementagencies will begin soon, which will rapidly increase the percentage completed. Mr. Rootanticipates being able to begin infrastructure reconfiguration in the fall of this year.

Negotiations with Sprint for frequency monitoring of our specific assigned new frequenciesfor remaining incumbent Mexican usage have resulted in an executed agreement, and themonitoring will take place over six weeks in the late May – June time frame. The data gathered in this monitoring will provide a complete picture as to which frequencies and sitescan be retuned in our first infrastructure retuning phase.

With key 800 MHz licensees in Mexico completing their spectrum relocation, there is a “light at the end of [the] tunnel” of the massive and oft-delayed 800 MHz rebanding initiative, an FCC official recently told the governing board of the National Public Safety Telecommunications Council (NPSTC).

“We’re close,” Michael Wilhelm, chief of the policy and licensing division of the FCC’s public-safety and homeland-security bureau, said during the NPSTC governing-board meeting earlier this month. “The only regions that have not been fully rebanded are in the Mexico border area.”

There are 29 licensees in Texas that need to retune their 800 radio systems, as well as 14 California and two in New Mexico, Wilhelm said.

“Most of the U.S. licensees that remain to be retuned are blocked from doing so by stations in Mexico,” Wilhelm said. “We’ve received excellent cooperation from Mexican government and licensees. AT&T Mexico, which was the most significant blocker in Mexico, has finished retuning all of its Mexico stations, and so have some of the other major Mexico users of the 800 MHz band.”

_______________________________________________800 MHz PLMR Band on FCC’s October 23rd Meeting AgendaOctober, 2018 The FCC plans to “revitalize” the 800 MHz band with action at its Oct. 23 open meeting. The commission will consider a report and order and order opening up new channels in the 800 MHz private LMR (PLMR) band, eliminating outdated rules and reducing administrative burdens on PLMR licensees.

What the Report and Order and Order Would Do:• Add 318 new interstitial channels in the 800 MHz Mid-Band, the portion of the 800 MHz band usedmost extensively for PLMR.

• Direct Commission staff to announce when applications for 800 MHz Expansion Band, Guard Band,Sprint-vacated, and interstitial channels may be filed in the 44 of 55 National Public Safety PlanningAdvisory Committee regions where 800 MHz rebanding has been completed.

• Decline to give incumbent 800 MHz licensees filing priority for 800 MHz Expansion Band and GuardBand over non-incumbents after such an announcement.

• Terminate the 1995 freeze on inter-category sharing of 800 MHz channels, making it no longernecessary for applicants to seek a waiver of the freeze.